Conventionally, protection of an object against incident energy, such as high energy lasers, is achieved with high temperature ceramic coatings. However, these ceramic coatings may add to the weight of the object. In one aspect, the use of high temperature ceramic coatings on objects such as aerospace vehicles may be prohibitive due to weight and/or performance requirements for the aerospace vehicle. Further, high temperature ceramic coatings pose integration challenges when used on, for example, general surface materials and conformal geometries due to the brittle nature of the ceramic composites used in the high temperature ceramic coatings.